He Treats All Alike

He Treats All Alike

Monarch, Emperor or King
About whom poets did sing,
They who ruled realms vast
Didn't in this world last,

Bathed in perfumes of fame,
And gilded cloth covering their limbs of shame,
They're buried in a ceremony grand,
But in a small stretch of land,

They're the ones who were feared;
Who wore golden crowns and flowing beard,
Sat on stone-studded thrones
And fought with armour covering their bones,

They asserted their blood was blue
Unlike that is in me and you,
Their heads they never once bent
And never for their sins did repent,

Alas! Emperor or King must one day die
When breath from the breast doth fly,
Like all common clay each one lies,
Never again from the grave to rise,

So does lie the common dead
Who just lived on water and bread,
Whose hands a sceptre never held,
Nor the eyes stones or gold beheld,

Now all lie three feet deep,
Laid under the sod in eternal sleep,
What difference did the sceptre and crown make,
When neither to immortality a claim can stake.

Raghav R
1 Dec. 2018